The new Government must address GP partner retention and unemployment among salaried GPs ‘as a priority’, an influential think-tank has said.
A report by the Institute for Government and charitable trust Nuffield Foundation has warned that the Government’s ‘inheritance’ on public services is ‘extremely precarious’, as most services including the NHS are performing worse now than they were in 2010 or before the pandemic.
It highlighted general practice as one of the areas the Government should focus on as a priority, and said that ministers should address the ‘steady drip’ of fully qualified GPs from the NHS as soon as possible.
The report also mentioned GP unemployment as one of the main issues affecting the profession, and blamed this on a lack of core funding and the previous Government’s decision to exclude GPs from the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS).
The report said: ‘The new government must make stemming the steady drip of fully qualified GPs from the service a priority. This is particularly true for GP partners, on whom the current model of general practice relies.
‘Paradoxically, there are reports of very few available jobs for salaried GPs, despite high demand for their services.
‘It seems that this is due to a lack of core funding (which has risen less quickly than inflation since 2019) and the previous government’s decision to prohibit GPs from using funding from the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) to hire GPs.’
The authors added that GP partnership is ‘often unattractive’ because it requires ‘substantial’ up-front investment of personal money, particularly into the premises, and that this should ‘sound serious alarm bells’.
It added: ‘The unlimited liability model of many partnerships means that GP partners can often find themselves personally responsible for paying off practice liabilities in the event they want to wind up the partnership.
‘Partnership is also incredibly inflexible. Once a GP enters a partnership, they are generally tied to a location for a number of years, if not decades.
‘Finally, being a GP partner is much harder in a context of constrained spending increases. They have to manage tight budgets that, since 2019 at least, have not kept pace with inflation.
‘For a service where delivery relies on GPs taking on partnership, this should sound serious alarm bells about the sustainability of the current model.’
Earlier this month, health secretary Wes Streeting has said he is ‘committed to reversing’ the underfunding of general practice, in one of his first announcements in his new role.
Labour’s election manifesto carried no promises of increased investment in general practice, but in his previous shadow health secretary role, Mr Streeting had claimed that GPs have ‘a lot to look forward to’ under a Labour Government.
Last month, NHS England’s director of primary care admitted that the jobs that newly qualified GPs would want ‘are not there for them’.
However, she said that ‘hardly anybody’ qualifying as a GP this year wants to be a partner and that general practice ‘needs to evolve’ to ‘make sure it is attractive for a new generation of clinicians’.
The inclusion of GPs in ARRS had been a ‘red line’ for GPCE in 2024/25 contract negotiations but NHS England declined the request on the basis that GPs are core, rather than additional workforce in practices.
And the BMA is pushing for GP partners to be able to enter limited liability partnerships as part of a new national contract with the Government.
